The Knights of the White Shield eBook

“Into the fort!” shouted Sid, rushing
toward the closet, and, as usual, striving after the
first chance to retreat. “Into the fort,
my men!”

After him scrambled Charlie and Juggie, the dead “spy”
manifesting an unusual energy and scrambling after
them, forgetting that his friends were in his rear
and not in the closet. The next moment all heard
an ominous descent from the second to the first story.

She rushed down stairs, followed by the “British
army,” and all the members of the Up-the Ladder
Club that could move one leg before the other.

“I know those legs! I guess they will stand
it,” said Aunt Stanshy, as she reached the lower
floor and caught a glimpse of the fodder-box.
It was the British spy, whose stout pedestals were
sticking out, and he only needed to be once more seized
and dragged forward by Juggie and the other “continentals”
to give proof of his vigorous, embalmed condition.

“Sakes, boy!” said Aunt Stanshy.
“I thought you were shot, but you manifest an
immense amount of vitality for a dead man.”

“I came down rather sudden,” said the
governor.

“Yes, and it’s the last time,” exclaimed
Aunt Stanshy, “that thing is going to happen.
I will go up myself and fix that floor, and do it
thoroughly.”

In a few moments her hammer was heard vigorously pounding
in the closet and securing the club against future
harm.

“We didn’t do all we intended,”
said Charlie. “We were going to have a
reconciliation, aunty.”

“Between whom?”

“The British and Americans. We were going
to have the President of the United States and Queen
Victoria walk arm in arm up and down the floor, and
never have war any more.”

In the confusion attendant upon the fall of the “spy,”
the programme was not carried out as planned, and
the shadows of those two eminent rulers never darkened
the floor of the barn chamber.

“May war never happen, just the same!”
said Aunt Stanshy.

Amen! so say we all of us.

CHAPTER IX.

THE CUPOLA.

Aunt Stanshy was reading one day the list of prohibitions
posted up against the post in the barn chamber.

“Charlie,” she said “I like what
is said here, that no cross words and no bad words
must be spoken here; but what does it mean when it
says no one but the ‘treasury’
must climb the ladder and go up into the cupola?
Does that apply to honorary members? and did you think
that I might want to go there?”

Charlie’s mouth opened into a crack from ear
to ear. “Why—­why, the money
is up in the cupola!”

“The money is up there in the cupola? Yes,
I knew that; you told me that before. What holds
your money?”

“A tin dipper.”

“Well, now, if you don’t look out, somebody
will steal your money. You may be assured that
honorary members won’t trouble it.”